This chapter looks at how female suffragist couples commemorated their shared lives (or had them commemorated by friends) after death. Loves that women might not have felt safe expressing during their lifetimes might find an acceptable expression in the context of mourning rituals, such as memorial poetry, shared graves, or the erection of funerary monuments with dedications mentioning both parties. Fellow suffragists might support such mourning in a context where society did not recognize that there was a relationship to mourn.
19th c
LHMP entry
This chapter looks at a variety of ways that women associated with the suffrage movement “performed queerness” in public. Obviously, not all suffragists took part in the following, but those who did helped create the image of the transgressive “unfeminine” suffragist. The following is something of a catalog of these transgressive activities, which the book describes in connection with specific women who embodied them:
US and British suffrage movements existed at roughly the same time, but different approaches created a context for sharing tactics and experiences. This chapter looks at how US suffragists learned techniques and created alliances with their British counterparts in the early 20th century. These alliances also included transatlantic romantic relationships.
This chapter expands on the previous. While chapter 2 focused on individual romantic/domestic relationships, this one looks at larger non-traditional households that might include couples (or not) as well as un-coupled women. The focus is on mutually supportive arrangements, not simply people sharing an address. These chosen families (to use a modern term) provided emotional, financial, and medical support for each other, as well as mentorship for younger suffragists. They might include biological or adopted children of the members.
This chapter looks at the personal lives of some prominent suffragists. It was not uncommon for such women to have been married to men at some point, and they might leverage their status as a widow to deflect concern about domestic partnerships with women. These arrangements disrupted heterosexual norms regardless of whether the women involved considered them to represent a specific “identity.”
Opposition to suffrage was largely fueled by fears that if women engaged with the male-coded world of politics, it would be to the detriment of female-coded concerns and activities. Home life would suffer. This ideal of “separate spheres” was never more than a stereotype, especially among the working classes. But all manner of social woes were pinned on the upending of the “natural order” in which women were excluded from public life.
Part of the overarching theme of this study is the tension between “respectability politics” and the essential reliance the suffrage movement had on women willing to disrupt social norms, specifically including norms of sexuality and gender presentation. The resonances with the “lavender menace” confrontations of the 1970s are inevitable (and noted specifically in the conclusion).
Introduction
The author points out that this is an inescapably political book and should be read in that context. He points out that the question of “who is queer” is not at all straight-forward [pun intentional] in a historic context, and that queer figures have been silently and invisibly embedded in US history far deeper than most people are aware.
This is a narrative history of Anne Lister’s life between November 1831 and March 1834, the period covered by the tv series Gentleman Jack. The book was written specifically as a companion to the tv series, giving the actual details of Anne’s life during that period, which differs in various details from the tv series. (The tv series both omitted and invented significant details.) Interspersed in the narrative are extensive quotes from Anne’s diaries.
Introduction: Who is the Lesbian?
For the purposes of this book, “British lesbian history” begins in the late 18th century. It was unclear to me if this was simply a chosen scope based on the source material they wanted to present, or if the authors believe there is no lesbian history prior to that date. They assert that “lesbian identity” is a late 20th century concept. “Women…did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves as lovers of women.” [Note: we can take it as given that I disagree with that position.]
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